The best iPhone and iPad games from January 2015

Want to know the best new games that hit the App Store in January 2015? We've got you covered, with a round-up of the ten most essential iOS games of the last month.

This time we have remakes and remasters, and brand new adventures. We've got intimidating MOBAs and for-fans gamebooks, alongside more welcoming fare like a barmy arcade run-and-gun and a relaxing puzzler.

Controlling a brick doesn't sound like much fun. But what if I told you that this brick hides a rocket launcher under one of its sides, which you can use to blow up enemies and propel yourself to new heights?

Now it sounds more exciting, right? That is the killer idea behind Nitrome's latest pixel art puzzler, which is all about aligning your cube into the right position so you can roll into the next area, solve spatial puzzles, and beat up massive bosses.

MOBAs on mobile just don't seem to work. Vainglory isn't making as much money as DOTA, and people aren't playing Fates Forever on Twitch in quite the same numbers as League of Legends.

So there's little chance that The Witcher will make much of a dent. But it's still a cracking game that offers fast and furious combat - but with a welcome simplicity that will help new players try out this intimidating genre.

January has been a month for remakes, remasters, and re-releases with new versions of games like Grim Fandango and Resident Evil. But don't forget about our old pal Square Enix.

This month it gave us the epic Super Famicom role-player Dragon Quest V on our smartphones, with slightly sharper visuals, working touchscreen controls, and nothing else. Just a classic RPG, faithfully recreated on phones.

Talk about a hidden gem - I didn't even know this game existed until I started researching this list. But now I see that it's a rhythm-powered role-playing game with gorgeous cartoon art, I absolutely have to play it.

The game has you biffing on baddies by completing a simple musical mini-game so you'll have to think fast and tap faster to stay alive.

Gunslugs is way too cute for a game about the systematic mass murder of hundreds of soldiers. It's a game about blowing up choppers and churning through baddies with a flamethrower, but it's all cute and cuddly like a puppy made of bubblegum.

It calls back to the good old days when shooters weren't grotty and grungy and full of stubbly men rendered in Unreal Engine. They were colourful, bouncy, and fun - and that's exactly what Orangepixel has managed with this balls-out sequel.

No points for timing, Warner Bros. The film's almost a year old at this point. But you win some back for using the 3DS version as inspiration for this iOS port of The Lego Movie, which actually works quite nicely on mobile.

Thanks to a towering perspective and smart touch controls it's easier than ever to wander through plastic worlds, scooping up studs and beating up baddies. Sure, we've done it all before a million times, but once more won't hurt.

Free to play brawler WWE Immortals is not the smartest or the deepest fighting game around, but I suppose that suits the WWE, doesn't it? Ooh, sick burn.

You can't call it unenjoyable, though. There's something undeniably fun about kicking the snot out of your rivals. It was true of Batman and Superman in Injustice, and it's true of The Rock and John Cena is this bonkers wrestling rehash.

Adventure Time Game Wizard could be compared to LittleBigPlanet. You can make your own platforming stages, share them online, and even play through a grand campaign mode to unlock new characters and building materials.

But it also does something that Sackboy can't do. You can use special graph paper to draw out level designs by hand, and then scan them in with your iPhone's camera. The stage will then magically materialise on your device. Algebraic!